1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to mobile communication systems.
Mobile communication systems are generally covered by standards and the corresponding standards published by the corresponding standards organizations may be consulted for more information.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Suffice to say that, as shown in FIG. 1, a mobile communication system comprises three subsystems:                a radio subsystem 1, also called the “radio network”, that is essentially responsible for functions of transmission over the radio interface (2) and for management of radio resources, the radio subsystem being also called the base station subsystem (BSS) in systems such as the Global System for Mobile communications (GSM) in particular or the radio network subsystem (RNS) in systems such as the Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) in particular, and the radio subsystem itself comprising network elements such as base stations (a base station is called a base transceiver station (BTS) in systems such as the GSM or a Node B in systems such as the UMTS) or base station controllers (BSC), as they are known in systems such as the GSM, being also called radio network controllers (RNC) in systems such as the UMTS,        a routing subsystem 3, also called the “fixed network” or “network subsystem” (NSS), that is essentially responsible for call set-up and mobility management functions, this routing subsystem being connected firstly to the radio subsystem and also (as indicated at 4) to external networks (not specifically shown), and        an operation and maintenance system 5, also called the “operation subsystem” (OSS), essentially enabling the operator to manage his network 6, which is formed of the radio network 1 and the fixed network 3.        
Network operation encompasses various tasks, a particularly important one of which is optimizing the radio network. Generally speaking, the objective of this radio network optimization task for the operator (also referred to hereinafter as the optimizer or user) is to achieve the required quality of service by using the available radio resources as efficiently as possible.
Optimizing the radio network itself encompasses various functions, in particular functions for diagnosing network problems and/or analyzing quality of service and for optimizing the radio parameter settings on the basis of such diagnoses and/or analyses.
Furthermore, a mobile communication network operating system may itself comprise three subsystems, as shown in FIG. 2:                a subsystem 10 that is essentially responsible for processing tasks corresponding to the implementation of the various operating tasks and communicates with the operator via workstations 11,        a subsystem 12 that is essentially responsible for applying to the network 6 commands coming from the subsystem 10 and for receiving from the network 6 data needed for the processing carried by the subsystem 10, and        a subsystem 13 handling the functions that provide communication between the subsystems 10 and 12.        
Generally speaking, the growth in the traffic to be managed, and the consequentially ever increasing number of network elements installed and therefore of parameters to be processed, not to mention the variety and the complexity of the heterogeneous information to be analyzed (whether it comes from the network itself or from its geographical environment), make the optimization tasks extremely complex, and it then becomes important to simplify and/or facilitate the work of the operator. The present invention addresses these requirements in particular.